14. The Committee of Permanent Representatives:

The Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) originated as a diplomatic forum to meet regularly and prepare meetings of the Council of Ministers. It quickly and quietly evolved into a locus of continuous negotiation and de facto decision-making, gaining a reputation as ‘the place to do the deal’. This reputation is based on insulation from domestic audiences and an unrivalled ability to make deals stick across a range of issue areas and policy subjects. Most importantly, Coreper spotlights the process of integrating interests in a collective decision-making system with its own organizational culture, norms, and style of discourse. In actual operation, the Committee has much to offer institutional theorizing, as multiple ‘logics’ of action are discernible and often complexly entwined.

Introduction

In this Introduction, I frame the book’s argument around two issues: the project of a Political Commission, which Jean-Claude Juncker and Pierre Moscovici embodied, and political work in international organizations more generally. Political work, I argue, is the practice of trying to carve out a space for political agency in an environment that is heavily constrained by bureaucratic rules, international norms, and intergovernmental power structures. I contrast political work with other logics of action: technocratic expertise, the application of legal norms and institutional rules, market pressures, and diplomacy. Then I explain the effects and social dynamics of international political work.

nr="67"Die Zeit der Radikalisierung – temporale, diagnostische und professionalisierungsbezogene Aspekte eines zeitgenössischen Dispositivs

Zusammenfassung: Der Begriff Radikalisierung hat seit den islamistischen Terroranschlägen des 11. September eine beispiellose Konjunktur in Forschung, Prävention und Politik erfahren, Er umfasst ein heterogenes Ensemble von sozialwissenschaftlichen Theorien, Bildungs- und Präventionsansätzen, staatlichen Programmen, sozialpädagogischen und sicherheitspolitischen Handlungslogiken. Der Artikel stellt seine Entwicklung und seine Bedeutung für die Pädagogik dar und erörtert diese an ausgewählten Herausforderungen sozialpädagogischer Praxis. Plädiert wird schließlich dafür, den Begriff und die unter ihm befassten Phänomene als wissens-, reflexions-, und handlungsbezogene Herausforderung pädagogischer Professionalität ernstzunehmen.Abstract: The use of the concept of radicalization has unprecedently increased in research, prevention and politics since the September 11 attacks. It comprises a heterogenous ensemble of social theories, federal programs, social pedagogical and security logics of action. The article describes its development and impact for pedagogy and debates it concerning selected challenges of social pedagogical practice. Finally, it opts for taking the concept serious as a challenge for professional development in education.

Der Einfluss extremistischer Gewaltereignisse auf das Framing von Extremismen auf SPIEGEL Online

In this article, we examine the representation of right-wing extremism, left-wing extremism and Islamism in the media-public discourse using the example of SPIEGEL Online, one of the leading German media. We derive four central dimensions for the conceptualization of extremisms: ideological foundation, origin of the actors, position towards society and typical actions. We observe the development of the representation of extremisms at potential breakpoints: We investigate the associative framing of the extremisms before and after a prominent extremism-related violent event, namely 9/11, the publication of the NSU scandal and left-wing extremist activities during the G20 summit. We observe changes in framing motivated by the selected events and compare the resulting framing with the current definitions of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in order to work out possible differences in the conceptualization of extremism variants with potentially different logics of action to be expected from diverging conceptualisations.

HOW TO PLAN, HANDLE, ANALYSE AND INTERPRET NARRATIVES, ACCORDING TO THE QUALITATIVE-UNDERSTANDING APPROACH?

This paper derives from our PhD research in Sociology on socio-identitarian requalification processes (processos de requalificação socio-identitária, henceforth PRSI) of Portuguese women who migrated to the Basque Country (San Sebastian area). To this end, we co-composed 31 exemplary case accounts, following the question: “What are the logics of action and what identitarian strategies are adopted by women who, facing the social experience of disqualification, engage in their ‘socio-identitarian requalification’?” We focus and organize this paper on the exposition of the main procedures and specific forms of the qualitative analysis, as we applied it at the ‘the processes of socio-identitarian requalification (PRSI) - how we called, since 2008, the analytical-understanding model of social trajectories of requalification from poverty conditions. (cf. Toscano 2015, 2017, 2018). So, in this paper, we explain in depth how we organize the 4 methodological acts which compose this 'analytical-understanding model processes of socio-identitarian requalification' that we have been developing since 2008 in our analysis of trajectories for social change ('leaving' so called poverty conditions). Therefore, after a brief mention of the Tool-Problematics, which constitutes the base for our research, in point 1.1 (1st act: theoretical-conceptual-epistemological roots), we focus on specific procedures, such as: - point 2: justifying the co-composition of accounts: operationalizing principles, procedures and criteria for the selection of exemplary cases and composition of narratives (2nd act, steps 2-3); - point 3: planning and co-composing the biographical process (2nd act, Steps 4a-4b; 6 stages); - point 4 (3rd act), 1st level of theorization: writing down speech through transcription-translation (step 5; stages 7-8) and transposition-rearrangement (analysis units, operation mode, discursive levels, account axes, rules/kinds of annotation - steps 6-7, stages 9-12); - point 5 (4th act), 2nd level of theorization: interpretation and theorizing composition in emergence (steps 8-9, stages 13-14, 7 operations); and finally, point 6, brief conclusions..

Speaking cooperation, acting competition: Supply-side subsidies and private schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged contexts in Buenos Aires

Few studies have explored how schools respond to competition in socially embedded education quasi-markets. This study focuses on how state-subsidized privately-run low-fee schools (S-LFPSs) compete with free public schools in some of the poorest neighborhoods of the City of Buenos Aires. In particular, we explore how S-LFPSs follow different logics of action to attract (and shape) enrollment profiting from their extended autonomy and some regulatory gaps. We applied discourse analysis on data from eight months of ethnographic case study research in nine S-LFPSs. Student selection and operational changes (e.g., increasing the student/teacher ratio) prevail over academic and curricular changes. Selection is operated by means of aptitude tests and screening interviews, and other symbolic artifacts aimed at signaling differences with state-run schools and the potential fit between schools and families. We present a heuristic typology of the different logics of action systematizing the schools’ responses as their leading orientations toward the competitive environment. We suggest that policy inconsistencies and deficient governmental oversight tilt the field against state-run schools. Rather than ensuring equality of educational opportunity, the policy contributes to shape and deepen a highly segregated and inequitable educational landscape.

The Extra-Institutional Logics of an Emerging Market Field: Values and Practice in the Bitcoin Experience

Mature fields of market activity are characterized by clear norms, entrenched meanings, and rigid power hierarchies that stabilize logics of action. However, how do logics of action emerge in a nascent field of market activity that lacks these types of institutions? To answer this question, I draw on theories of institutions and markets to examine the experiences of 23 adopters of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin during 2015 to 2016. Utilizing an iterative combination of correspondence analysis (CA) techniques and narrative analysis, I show how Bitcoin adoption was motivated by competing value frameworks that corresponded to different user types in the system. This resulted in the emergence novel “extra-institutional logics” that supported the growth of Bitcoin as a whole despite being centered on different visions for the future of the system. These logics provide a unique glimpse into how Bitcoin was able to survive during a period of notable instability preceding a historic market bubble. This article provides support for dynamic theories of markets and demonstrates how logics of action are tethered to the characteristics of the fields in which they emerge.

School actors’ enactment of a performative accountability scheme in Russia: Tensions, dilemmas and strategies

In European and global educational debates, performative or test-based accountability has become central to modernizing and raising the performance of education systems. However, despite the global popularity of performative accountability modalities, existing research finds contradictory evidence on its effects, which tend to be highly context-sensitive. With the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of the mechanisms and contextual factors that explain the effects of performative accountability, this study investigates the enactment of a performative accountability scheme adopted in the Russian school system. The analysis is based on interview and observation data collected during an in-depth qualitative study of two neighbouring schools with contrasting logics of action. Our findings illuminate the specific ways in which accountability policy outcomes are mediated and shaped by schools’ context and agency. We show how schools with different logics of action react to external pressures, and how different professional groups within schools experience policy pressures in dissimilar ways. We conclude that performative accountability mechanisms reinforce instrumental, and impede expressive, logics of action in schools. In both cases they produce tensions, particularly for schools in disadvantaged areas.

« Nous, maintenant, on veut poursuivre cette occupation de la rue » : les catholiques attestataires entre contre-culture, mission et défense patrimoniale

The debate about the same sex marriage bill in France has launched a significant sequence of politicization and assertion in the streets for the conservative Catholics. Though mobilization declined after the law was passed, these initiatives still arouse differentiated appropriation of public urban space. Relying on ethnographic work, this article analyses two logics of action emerging complementarily and organizing these post-‘Mariage pour tous’ demonstrations in Paris. In both cases there is a real ‘place-taking/place-making’ at work. Extending the study of recent Catholic mobilizations to the different activists still active after ‘La Manif Pour Tous’ makes it possible to understand how central the issue of drop in status seems in order to analyze these protest repertoires and their evolutionary inscription in the city, especially in the direction of the ‘peripheries’.

Re-Discovering the Political Rationale of Public Ownership

This article sets out to explore the political motives, logics of action and rationales that seem to be significant factors in shaping the way how government-owned enterprises come into and stay in existence. In doing so, we also take issue with the established discourse on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that appears to be predominantly couched in terms of economic theory and managerial considerations. By way of contrast, we propose that political interests and rationales are unduly neglected as potentially powerful drivers of public ownership and/or trends of ‘corporatization’